Joined: 6/7/2008
Posts: 124
Location: Portugal
Normally, only people who know a game actually watch runs of it. It makes no sense for me to watch an Okami run when I don't appreciate the tricks, skips, or what makes X faster than Y. So if you already completed TWW, and know it well enough to appreciate the TAS... chances are you REALLY don't care about the plot, because you already know it. That, combined with a broken story sequence thanks to the skips makes following the plot on a TAS a ridiculous idea. So who cares! Not like it matters for this case, because the JP version clearly has to be used; as Tompa points out, it saves 15 minutes. But I'm just throwing in my two cents for general "English vs Japanese" discussions.
I'm Espyo from the SRB2 Forums. Current project: A Pikmin fan engine, Pikifen
Joined: 4/13/2009
Posts: 431
To be honest, I wouldn't watch the cutscenes in any case (fast forward!), so iw doesn't make any difference if it's english or japanaese for me. All I'd like to see is a TAS--optimized or otherwise! That's enough for me. And I really don't see a "must" anywhere. Who says a TAS must must absolutely, without a doubt, aim for absolutely the fastest time and nothing else is acceptable?
Experienced player (704)
Joined: 2/5/2012
Posts: 1799
Location: Brasil
This game is the bane of TASing,everybody gets scared and gives up,even after tasvids giving input about it not having to be perfect but really optimized,maybe everybody could just let their WIPs in the thread so other ones improve it someday?(co-authoring)
I want all good TAS inside TASvideos, it's my motto. TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
Former player
Joined: 6/30/2010
Posts: 1107
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
You can't aim for complete optimization in a TAS of this particular game, especially not if it's the first TAS ever. The superswims are the obvious reason for this.
Current project: Gex 3 any% Paused: Gex 64 any% There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
Active player (465)
Joined: 3/30/2012
Posts: 405
Why are superswims so hard to optimize? I'm not really familiar with how TASing this game works.
Player (36)
Joined: 9/11/2004
Posts: 2630
Stevmay09 wrote:
Why are superswims so hard to optimize? I'm not really familiar with how TASing this game works.
Regular Swimming in Wind Waker has several aspects that make optimization extremely difficult. 1. Speed is periodic based on the frame of swimming displayed. 2. The distance traveled affects your swimming frame. 3. Speed decays as your breath meter goes down. 4. However, animation cycle becomes shorter as your breath meter goes down. Super swimming adds the following: 1. Determining the optimal amount of time to spend storing super swim speed vs swimming (longer you spend the faster you go, but because of regular swim 1 and 2 this isn't linear, more like x sin x^2, the graph was posted up thread and it's completely crazy). 2. Determining the optimal time to leave shore nearby (if you leave shore 3 causes your speed increase to take longer; however, not leaving means having to cover more distance.) 3. And the big one: finding the correct controller positions to alternate between. Super swimming does not require perfect 180 degree turns, smaller ones can be acceptable (as small as 144 degrees?) Having a smaller angle means you move more sideways while charging your super swim, which can be toward your destination (but not too soon because of 3!). You have to find the controller positions anew each time your camera changes angle. There has not been discovered any new way to programmatically determine the proper super swim angle to use. Super swim problem/technique #3 might also (I'm not certain) reduce the rate that speed is stored. One more thing to optimize.
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Active player (465)
Joined: 3/30/2012
Posts: 405
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
Stevmay09 wrote:
Why are superswims so hard to optimize? I'm not really familiar with how TASing this game works.
Regular Swimming in Wind Waker has several aspects that make optimization extremely difficult. 1. Speed is periodic based on the frame of swimming displayed. 2. The distance traveled affects your swimming frame. 3. Speed decays as your breath meter goes down. 4. However, animation cycle becomes shorter as your breath meter goes down. Super swimming adds the following: 1. Determining the optimal amount of time to spend storing super swim speed vs swimming (longer you spend the faster you go, but because of regular swim 1 and 2 this isn't linear, more like x sin x^2, the graph was posted up thread and it's completely crazy). 2. Determining the optimal time to leave shore nearby (if you leave shore 3 causes your speed increase to take longer; however, not leaving means having to cover more distance.) 3. And the big one: finding the correct controller positions to alternate between. Super swimming does not require perfect 180 degree turns, smaller ones can be acceptable (as small as 144 degrees?) Having a smaller angle means you move more sideways while charging your super swim, which can be toward your destination (but not too soon because of 3!). You have to find the controller positions anew each time your camera changes angle. There has not been discovered any new way to programmatically determine the proper super swim angle to use. Super swim problem/technique #3 might also (I'm not certain) reduce the rate that speed is stored. One more thing to optimize.
Wow. Would it even be possible to optimize superswims without some kind of script?
Joined: 12/6/2008
Posts: 1193
Mitjitsu wrote:
Most people including me prefer the English version due to being able to read the text. There has never been a consensus or expectation that the J version must be used. The only game I've ever used the J version on is Mystical Ninja, and that was because it had a map glitch which wasn't in the U version.
I don't think most people prefer the english version. There has been a big shift in popular opinion over the past few years. Also you should TAS Majoras Mask, there multiple glitches are exclusive to japanese and make J 1.1 fastest. :D
Joined: 12/31/2013
Posts: 6
Hi there, I'm new, unknown here, lurked this TAS WiP and the thread, but I jumped recently and worked myself on my favorite Zelda game's TAS. As a proof you can watch for the 10^10 th time the very beginning of the game being TASed. Link to video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWZ4mc1BRQk ) Compared to Abahbob's one, I'm slightly behind. In order to be better, I've been working on the superswims recently: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uM3t_GGF96KW1-ckBLiweYLVXxteiT54OBVj1a-OUx0/edit?usp=sharing I've been doing the superswims manually, but I'd like some solid datas (perfect superswims) and for this I need a script (and for real, I have so many tests in my head to do !) A friend of mine has been helping me with LUA scripts, but apparently, here, he can't help me. If anyone has some time to waste on compiling Dolphin with the ability to use (LUA ?) scripts to execute inputs (like Abahbob's had), I'd be grateful forever T__T. By the way, if someone wants to teamup with me, I'd gladly work with you ^~^. Sorry for my broken English~
Joined: 4/13/2009
Posts: 431
Well, like people have said, it's just too complex to find an optimal solution even using a script. You would have to exhaustively examine very possible option.
Joined: 12/31/2013
Posts: 6
Hi, I'm not about saving one frame (second) or two on superswims, right now I want datas, lots of, to try to get some general rules for further situations (as a helpful "guide" for myself or others). Having to do the superswims manually (here I have 6 cases, but I want to try at least 10 to 20 others) takes WAY too long and is boring passed a certain amount of time spent on it (and of course sh*t happens frequently, like missing an input, a frame or something...). Moreover, if you want to be sure it's perfectly done, unless you spend 30+minutes on one superswim, you have to go for a script. I can do the superswim for the TAS manually (angled camera for entertainment - some test to do too there), but doing 20 times the same one for datas is sometimes too much.
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Player (112)
Joined: 11/27/2011
Posts: 394
Location: Massachusetts
Isn't rolling faster than side step in this game?
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Joined: 12/31/2013
Posts: 6
sack_bot wrote:
Isn't rolling faster than side step in this game?
It is, unless you grab an item (rock, bomb, etc) or a character (Medli, Markar), then you can't roll :p. Sometimes it's better to sidehop (on the log for exemple: short, steep slope or to jump down some ledges in order to side roll when landing). To get full roll speed, you have to walk a little, and on steep slopes you need several rolls to get full speed. During mob manipulation they don't move until a certain point in their animation is reached, so I have some free time, I can sidehop instead of roll to reach the ledge where I get storage near the rock I grab.
QuizmasterBos
He/Him
Joined: 6/23/2013
Posts: 136
What is the current proposed route for this game? Why do we need to rescue Tetra before going to Northern Fairy Island to upgrade the wallet? Does the game soft-lock somewhere if we don't?
Editor, Expert player (2329)
Joined: 5/15/2007
Posts: 3933
Location: Germany
[19:34:41] Abahbob: It's to stop the crash later when going for the FoF wallet. [19:35:17] Abahbob: There's no point in working on a TAS until tuner is TASable, then we need to make a route.
Experienced player (704)
Joined: 2/5/2012
Posts: 1799
Location: Brasil
but there is a tunerless category for this game,a lot can be done with storage only
I want all good TAS inside TASvideos, it's my motto. TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
Active player (465)
Joined: 3/30/2012
Posts: 405
Would a TAS of this game be faster than the HD edition? (I know there are no Wii U emulators, though) It is in RTA, but i'm not sure about tas.
Patashu
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Posts: 4043
Stevmay09 wrote:
Would a TAS of this game be faster than the HD edition? (I know there are no Wii U emulators, though) It is in RTA, but i'm not sure about tas.
Definitely, you can superswim without storage in TAS. Or do you mean TAS of this vs TAS of HD? That would be tough, since HD RTA has no superswims at all, but HD TAS would be able to superswim everywhere yet again. Probably HD would win but I'm not sure.
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Joined: 12/31/2013
Posts: 6
Patashu wrote:
Stevmay09 wrote:
Would a TAS of this game be faster than the HD edition? (I know there are no Wii U emulators, though) It is in RTA, but i'm not sure about tas.
Definitely, you can superswim without storage in TAS. Or do you mean TAS of this vs TAS of HD? That would be tough, since HD RTA has no superswims at all, but HD TAS would be able to superswim everywhere yet again. Probably HD would win but I'm not sure.
Well, It's kind of hard to say. HD will save some time:
  • Intro skip-able
  • Shorter (by a lot) Triforce quest
  • More roll clip strats ?
HD will lose time:
  • No storage :
    • No CS Skip
    • No Chest storage/Door cancel strat
  • longer dungeons (probably ?)
  • no tuner (is this a real argument ? I mean you can zombie hover without it and manipulate ennemies to come back to life. Moreover you lose lots of time waiting the game to be connected to the GBA).
  • longer Helmarock skip
If an emulator is available someday, we would have to try some skips to see if the game crashes like SD does (very likely). By the way, I want to work on datas for the TAS or even on the TAS itself 'cause I like working on it. I'd better do something than nothing at all, waiting for some miracle to come...
QuizmasterBos wrote:
What is the current proposed route for this game?
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wttBXGQpVcnWp8xiAun4B0VL34vF0Au8KpLmkc1qK5s/edit Maybe it will change someday.
Joined: 5/30/2013
Posts: 44
Location: Australia
So, I've restarted my run, I'm doing the Japanese version. Yeah, surprisingly it didn't burn me out(that much..). I've improved the superswim, I'll upload the whole WIP video tonight / tomorrow. I won't do any comparison, because the superswims are one of those things that burn the living crap out of you. Also nice job drizor on the WIP as well, Glad to see more people are joining in! -- Here you all go, have a WIP: Link to video
Joined: 12/17/2012
Posts: 71
You brave souls. Much love to you guys! <3 Everything you do brings Wind Waker at least a step closer to completion.
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Joined: 7/9/2010
Posts: 1319
I highly recommend you girls team up and work together on one TAS, not everyone on their own.
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Editor, Expert player (2329)
Joined: 5/15/2007
Posts: 3933
Location: Germany
There is a skype group for TWW TAS discussions. I think it could be helpful if those who posted WIPs or have questions join it - if you want to. Please PM me (with your skype name) if interested.
Joined: 5/30/2013
Posts: 44
Location: Australia
TASeditor wrote:
I highly recommend you girls team up and work together on one TAS, not everyone on their own.
I might consider teaming up.. maybe. :P
Joined: 12/31/2013
Posts: 6
MUGG wrote:
There is a skype group for TWW TAS discussions. I think it could be helpful if those who posted WIPs or have questions join it - if you want to. Please PM me (with your skype name) if interested.
I surely will !
TASeditor wrote:
I highly recommend you girls team up and work together on one TAS, not everyone on their own.
I'd be glad to work with someone ;).
CGF95 wrote:
I might consider teaming up.. maybe. :P
Come and join the crew :P.